And Bessent to me is Exhibit A of the fundamental truth — and we’ve talked about this before — of the Trump 2 administration. Trump 1 was surrounded by buffers, and Trump 2 is surrounded by amplifiers. There is simply no buffer anymore between what Trump hears at the Mar-a-Lago bar and what becomes Treasury policy days later, or foreign policy days later.
Now, as for Jerome Powell, I can’t say for sure, but judging from everything he’s said and believed over the years, he knows how you cut the government budget, how you reduce spending, and it’s not by gutting the crown jewels of the American government, which are our institutions.
Healy: And Tom, China is watching all of this, and Trump pretends at least to say that he cares a great deal about competition with China, America’s position against China. But I find myself wondering — and you watch China closely, you visit there, you talk to officials there — how do they see this kind of long-term trajectory of what America is trying to do with tariffs, with trade, with its own economic house, trying to get it in order? And what does that look like for the future?
Friedman: Well, I’d say a couple things about China and Russia here, where they’re aligned.
Number one is these two countries spend a huge amount of money on disinformation and trying to soil the American brand around the world. They don’t have to spend a dime anymore, Pat. All they have to do is quote Donald Trump. When Donald Trump says Zelensky is a dictator, well, what does Putin have to say? He just has to quote him.
Number two, China and Putin have the exact same agenda, which is to shrink American power, keep it bottled up in North America, get the Americans out of Europe and get the Americans out of the Pacific Asian theater. Anything that does that is just perfect for them. That is their alliance; it’s to shrink American influence in the world.
